Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska

The Journal of Wildlife Management; DOI: 10.1002/jwmg.342 Human Dimensions Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska TOM S. SMITH, 1 Wildlife Sciences Program, Faculty of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Brigham Young University, 451 WIDB, Provo, UT 84602, USA STEPHEN HERRERO, Environmental Science Program, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 1N4 CALI STRONG LAYTON, Wildlife Sciences Program, Plant and Wildlife Sciences Program, Brigham Young University, 448 WIDB, Provo, UT 84602, USA RANDY T. LARSEN, Wildlife Sciences Program, Faculty of Plant and Wildlife Sciences and Monte L. Bean Life Sciences Museum, Brigham Young University, 407 WIDB, Provo, UT 84602, USA KATHRYN R. JOHNSON, 2 Alaska Science Center, USGS, 1011 E. Tudor Road, Anchorage, AK 99502, USA ABSTRACT We compiled, summarized, and reviewed 269 incidents of bear human conflict involving firearms that occurred in Alaska during 1883 2009. Encounters involving brown bears (Ursus arctos; 218 incidents, 81%), black bears (Ursus americanus; 30 incidents, 11%), polar bears (Ursus maritimus; 6 incidents, 2%), and 15 (6%) unidentified species provided insight into firearms success and failure. A total of 444 people and at least 367 bears were involved in these incidents. We found no significant difference in success rates (i.e., success being when the bear was stopped in its aggressive behavior) associated with long guns (76%) and handguns (84%). Moreover, firearm bearers suffered the same injury rates in close encounters with bears whether they used their firearms or not. Bears were killed in 61% (n ¼ 162) of bear firearms incidents. Additionally, we identified multiple reasons for firearms failing to stop an aggressive bear. Using logistic regression, the best model for predicting a successful outcome for firearm users included species and cohort of bear, human activity at time of encounter, whether or not the bear charged, and if fish or game meat was present. Firearm variables (e.g., type of gun, number of shots) were not useful in predicting outcomes in bear firearms incidents. Although firearms have failed to protect some users, they are the only deterrent that can lethally stop an aggressive bear. Where firearms have failed to protect people, we identified contributing causes. Our findings suggest that only those proficient in firearms use should rely on them for protection in bear country. ß 2012 The Wildlife Society. KEY WORDS Alaska, bear deterrence, bear human interactions, black bears, brown bears, firearms, grizzly bears, polar bears, Ursus americanus, Ursus arctos, Ursus maritimus. People who work and recreate in North American bear habitat often fear bear encounters. Although the vast majority of bear human interactions are benign, some yield a variety of adverse outcomes including destruction of property, injuries, and fatalities to both bears and humans (Herrero 2002). Bear attacks are of great interest to the media and can result in negative consequences for bear conservation (Craighead and Craighead 1971, Miller and Chihuly 1987, Loe and Roskaft 2004). In 1967, for example, 2 human fatalities in Glacier National Park led some to call for the elimination of grizzly bears from America s national parks (Moment 1968, 1969). Ultimately, bears were seen as an integral part of ecosystems and remained (Herrero 1970, Craighead and Craighead 1971), but ongoing bear human interactions and attendant consequences persist. Received: 20 December 2010; Accepted: 22 October 2011 Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article. 1 E-mail: tom_smith@byu.edu 2 Present Address: P.O. Box 4374, Palmer, AK 99645, USA. Until the advent of bear spray in the 1980s, firearms were the primary deterrent for safety in bear country (Smith et al. 2008). Even now, private, state, and federal agencies in North America often require employees to carry firearms while working in bear country. Although bear safety manuals acknowledge the value of firearms, they also caution that users must be proficient under duress (Shelton 1994, Smith 2004, Gookin and Reed 2009). Furthermore, data regarding firearm performance in aggressive bear encounters are lacking. In fact, we could find little published information quantitatively addressing the effectiveness of firearms as bear deterrents. Herrero (2002) noted that firearms have their place in protecting people from aggressive bears, but did not present data regarding firearm use or efficacy. Similarly, Bromley et al. (1992) discussed many aspects of firearm use as bear deterrents, but provided no supporting data. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (2002) stated that people using firearms in bear encounters were injured 50% of the time, but no data or references were provided as support for this figure. Similarly, Meehan and Thilenius (1983) Smith et al. Bears and Firearms 1

presented data regarding bullet performance at short range with reference to bear attacks, but did not present ballistics information from actual bear encounters. Hence, a study of bear human conflicts involving firearms has not been conducted. Moreover, firearm efficacy in resolving bear human conflict has not been quantified and remains speculative. Our specific objectives for this paper were to 1) review and summarize Alaskan bear firearm incidents and 2) identify factors associated with successful use of firearms in bear human conflicts in order to promote both human safety in bear country and bear conservation. STUDY AREA Alaska is located in the northwestern portion of North America and occupies an area of 1,530,699 km 2. The human population in Alaska was estimated to be 698,473 in 2009. The brown or grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) ranges throughout the state with the most recent estimate at 31,700 (Miller 1993). Black bears (Ursus americanus) are found in most forested areas of Alaska. Formal population estimates do not exist for black bears, but an Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) biologist roughly estimated them to number more than 50,000 (Harper 2007). Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are marine mammals that rarely venture onto land (Amstrup 2003). In Alaska, polar bears from both the Chukchi and Southern Beaufort Seas subpopulations occasionally range up to 80 km inland, primarily for maternal denning. Recent estimates put their numbers at about 3,800 (Amstrup 2003). METHODS Compilation and Summary We compiled information on bear attacks from readily accessible state and federal records, newspaper accounts, books, and anecdotal information that spanned the years 1883 2009. We defined an incident as a single bear firearm event that involved 1 or more people and 1 or more firearms. For each incident we recorded the following variables to the extent data were available: date, time, month, year, location of incident, number of people, sex of people, activity at time of interaction, whether or not people were making noise prior to the encounter, probable cause of encounter, distance to bear at time of encounter, bear species and cohort (age sex class), whether or not the bear charged, minimum distance to the bear, presence of fish and/or game meat, type of firearms used, number of shots fired, warning shots, firearm efficacy, firearm ratio (number of firearms/number of people), distance to bear when shot, visibility of habitat (subjectively rated poor, fair, good based on terrain and vegetation), reasons for firearm ineffectiveness, extent of human injuries, and extent of bear injuries. To overcome problems associated with missing or unclear information, we limited the contributions of each record to what we deemed were the most trustworthy pieces of information. The review process was subjective, but we feel confident that we limited our inferences to a minimum while gleaning useful information for analysis. For each of these incidents, we also used the following categories to characterize probable causes for bear human encounters: surprised (people startled the bear), curiosity (the bear s motivation appears to have been curiosity), provoked (e.g., a photographer crowding it or a hunter pursuing it), predatory (the bear treated the human as potential prey), and carcass defense (the bear defending a food source). We also subjectively evaluated injuries as follows: slight injuries included nips, limited biting, and scratches where hospitalization was not required; moderate injuries required hospitalization to some degree, and included punctures, bite wounds and broken bones; and severe injuries resulted in extended hospitalization and often permanent disability. We defined a charge as an agonistic behavior typified by a sudden rush, or lunge, toward the perceived threat. Some charges terminated prior to contact (i.e., bluff charges) whereas others resulted in contact. For distance to bears, we regrouped values into broad categories (i.e., <10 m, 10 25 m, 26 50 m, and >51 m) based on specificity in the accounts. We used reported distances for greater accuracy (e.g., distance to bear when shot) whenever possible. We deemed use of a firearm successful (response coded as 1) when it stopped the offensive behavior of the bear. These successes included incidents where bears no longer pursued a person, broke off an attack, abandoned attempts to acquire food or garbage, were killed, or turned and left the area as a result of firearm use. Conversely, firearm failures (response coded as 0) occurred when the bear continued its pursuit, persisted in attempts to acquire food or garbage, or showed no change in behavior after firearm use. We excluded incidents from our analysis where firearms were available but no attempt to use them was made. Statistical Analysis We used the G-test of independence (Dytham 2003) when we had 2 nominal variables, each with 2 or more possible values, and we wanted to compare frequencies of one to the other. We also tested the equality of sample means with a 2-sample t-test. We used the Z-test to compare the proportions from 2 independent groups to determine if they were different. We set significance at P < 0.05. To understand the relationship between variables and incident outcomes, we used logistic regression where the response variable was success (1) or failure (0) of firearms. We identified candidate models representing different hypotheses related to firearm success as a function of bear, human, firearm, and spatio-temporal factors (Table 1). Our analysis followed several steps. First, we evaluated the number of records and odds associated with different categories of our explanatory variables to determine which should be collapsed or combined. Second, we used Akaike s Information Criterion adjusted for small sample sizes (AIC c ) to rank models (Akaike 1973, Burnham and Anderson 2002) for each variable type (i.e., bear, firearm, human, spatiotemporal). We then used the top model and competing models (DAIC c < 2.0) within each type in the third stage of analysis similar to Doherty et al. (2008). Here we combined variables and ranked models based on smallest AIC c to 2 The Journal of Wildlife Management

Table 1. Description of variables used in models of firearm success in bear incidents in Alaska, USA during 1883 2009. Variable Category Description Species Bear Species of bear involved in event (black, brown, polar) Cohort Bear Cohort of bear involved in event (unknown, pairs, female with young, female, and male) Charge Bear Bear charged (yes, no, unknown) Group size Human Group size (count of people present) Activity Human Activity code of humans (active, intermediate, sedentary, unknown) Fish/game Human Presence of fish or game (no, game, fish, unknown) Noise Human Noise associated with activity (no, yes, unknown) Firearm type Firearm Firearm type (handgun, long gun, both, unknown) No. of shots Firearm Number of shots fired Warning shots Firearm Number of warning shots fired Firearm ratio Firearm Number of guns divided by number of individuals in group Distance Spatio-temporal Distance from bear when firearm discharged (<10 m, 10 20 m, 21 30 m, 31 40 m, >40 m) Visibility Spatio-temporal Visibility at site (poor, good, unknown) Season Spatio-temporal Season of incident (spring, summer, fall, winter, unknown) identify a best approximating model. We then evaluated these models and their associated variables to identify any uninformative parameters that did not improve AIC c and discarded them (Arnold 2009). Because the best approximating model had high AIC c weight (w i ¼ 0.96), we used it to evaluate the direction and strength (odds ratios) of associations between explanatory variables and firearm efficacy. To test for lack of model fit, we calculated Hosmer and Lemeshow s (2000) goodness of fit statistic. We also used the top model in a 5-fold cross validation exercise where we withheld 1/5th of the data and estimated model coefficients. We then used the estimated coefficients to predict incident outcomes for the withheld data. We calculated the proportion of outcomes accurately predicted (estimated probability of success >0.50 for successful outcomes and 0.50 for unsuccessful outcomes) for the withheld data and repeated this process until we obtained a prediction and accuracy for each observation. RESULTS A total of 444 people were involved in 269 incidents. At least 357 bears, including dependent offspring, were involved in 269 incidents, including 300 brown bears (84%), 36 black bears (10%), 6 polar bears (2%), and 15 of unknown species (4%). Bear-inflicted injuries occurred in 151 of 269 (56%) incidents (see Supplemental Information available online at www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com for additional details regarding characteristics of bear incidents). Success rates by firearm type were similar with 84% of handgun users (31 of 37) and 76% of long gun users (134 of 176) successfully defending themselves from aggressive bears (Z ¼ 1.0664, P ¼ 0.2862). When we compared outcomes for people who used their firearm in an aggressive bear encounter (n ¼ 229) to those who had firearms but did not use them (n ¼ 40), we found no difference in the outcome (G 2 ¼ 0.691, P ¼ 0.708), whether the outcome was no injury, injury, or fatality. However, we found a difference in the outcome for bears with regard to firearm use: 172 bears died when people used their firearms, whereas no bears were killed when firearms were not used. Firearms failed to protect people for a variety of reasons including lack of time to respond to the bear (27%), did not use the firearm (21%), mechanical issues (i.e., jamming; 14%), the proximity to bear was too close for deployment (9%), the shooter missed the bear (9%), the gun was emptied and could not be reloaded (8%), the safety mechanism was engaged and the person was unable to unlock it in time to use the gun (8%), people tripped and fell while trying to shoot the bear (3%), and the firearm s discharge reportedly triggered the bear to charge that ended further use of the gun (1%). With respect to efforts to model firearm efficacy, we classified 156 incidents as successful. Our initial evaluation of the number of incidents assigned to each category and associated odds (Appendix 1) suggested (95% CI on odds ratio included 1) collapsing the species category to black bears and other (brown, polar, and unknown bears). This same evaluation suggested our initial breakdown of cohorts and seasons could be collapsed to female and other (pairs, males, unknown). Similarly, we combined seasons into 2 categories for summer and other (spring, fall, winter, unknown). The best model for firearm success relative to bear variables included species, cohort, and whether the bear charged (Table 2). For firearm variables, 2 models received enough support (DAIC c < 2.0) to be advanced to the third stage of analysis. These models included firearm ratio, number of warning shots, and success of warning shots. We found little support for models that included firearm type (Table 2). Analysis of human and spatio-temporal variables indicated activity, distance, group size, noise, presence of fish or game, season, and visibility influenced firearm success (Table 2). After combining variables across categories, a model including species, cohort, whether the bear charged, group size, human activity, noise, and presence of fish or game had the greatest AIC c weight. Because separate removal of group size and noise improved (reduced) the AIC c values compared to removal of other variables, we considered them uninformative and eliminated them from the top model. These same 2 variables also had 85% confidence intervals that spanned zero further suggesting they were uninformative (Arnold 2009). The resulting top model accounted for 96% of the AIC c weight and was more than 6 DAIC c better than the next competing models (Table 3). Hosemer Lemeshow s good- Smith et al. Bears and Firearms 3

Table 2. Ranking of supported models (DAIC c < 10.0) describing firearm success as a function of bear (species, cohort, charge), firearm (firearm type, no. shots, warning shots, firearm ratio), human (group size, activity, fish/game, noise), and spatio-temporal (distance, visibility, and season) influences in Alaska, USA during 1883 2009. Model structure a AIC c b DAIC c c w i Deviance Bear Success Species þ Cohort þ Charge 296.30 0.0 0.97 5 286.05 Success Species þ Cohort 303.82 7.5 0.02 3 297.72 Success Species þ Charge 305.51 9.2 0.01 4 297.35 Firearm Success No. shots þ Firearm ratio þ Warning shot 321.31 0.0 0.40 7 306.85 Success No. shots þ Firearm ratio 322.34 1.0 0.24 4 314.18 Success Firearm type þ No. shots þ Firearm ratio þ Warning shot 324.23 2.9 0.09 10 303.31 Success No. shots þ Warning shot 324.45 3.1 0.08 5 314.20 Success Firearm ratio þ Warning shot 325.80 4.5 0.04 6 313.45 Success Firearm type þ No. shots þ Firearm ratio 325.98 4.7 0.04 7 311.52 Success No. shots 326.28 5.0 0.03 2 322.23 Success Firearm type þ No. shots þ Warning shot 327.12 5.8 0.02 8 310.52 Success Firearm ratio 327.22 5.9 0.02 3 321.11 Success Warning shot 328.83 7.5 0.01 4 320.67 Success Firearm type þ Firearm ratio þ Warning shot 328.93 7.6 0.01 9 310.18 Success Firearm type þ No. shots 329.78 8.5 0.01 5 319.53 Success Firearm type þ Firearm ratio 331.32 10.0 0.00 6 318.97 Human Success Group size þ Activity þ Fish/Game þ Noise 305.27 0.0 0.59 10 284.35 Success Group size þ Fish/Game þ Noise 307.91 2.6 0.16 7 293.45 Success Activity þ Fish/Game þ Noise 308.16 2.9 0.14 9 289.41 Success Group size þ Activity þ Fish/Game 310.27 5.0 0.05 8 293.67 Success Fish/Game þ Noise 311.11 5.8 0.03 6 298.76 Success Group size þ Activity þ Noise 313.03 7.8 0.01 7 298.57 Success Activity þ Noise 314.12 8.8 0.01 6 301.77 Spatio-temporal Success Distance þ Visibility þ Season 300.26 0.0 0.74 7 285.79 Success Distance þ Season 302.36 2.1 0.26 6 290.01 a Akaike s Information Criterion adjusted for small sample sizes. b Change in AIC c from top model. c Model weight. d Number of estimable parameters. K d ness of fit statistics (P ¼ 0.26) provided no evidence of lack of fit. Similarly, 5-fold cross validation using the top model produced an accurate prediction of incident outcomes on withheld data for 71.9% of incidents further suggesting adequate fit. When the animal involved in the incident was a black bear, odds of firearm success were more than 38 times greater than when the bear was a brown, polar, or unknown bear (Table 4). Similarly, females without young were associated with a nearly 7-fold increase in odds of firearm success (Table 4). Conversely, odds of firearm success were negatively associated with human activity level and charging behavior by involved bears. Odds of firearm success were 12 and 24 times greater for intermediate and sedentary activity levels, respectively, compared to people considered active (Table 4). Once a bear charged, odds of firearm success decreased nearly 7-fold (Table 4). Interestingly, the presence of fish or game meat was associated with increases of 4 and 8, respectively, in odds of firearm success. DISCUSSION Brown bears were disproportionately involved (81%) in these encounters, a finding that is consistent with the widely held perception that brown bears are considerably more aggressive and hence, more likely to be involved in bear human conflict leading to injury, than the other 2 species (Herrero and Table 3. Ranking of supported models (DAIC c < 10.0) describing firearm success as a function of bear, firearm, human, and spatio-temporal influences in Alaska, USA during 1883 2009. Model structure a AIC c b DAIC c c w i K d Deviance Success e Species þ Cohort þ Charge þ Activity þ Fish/Game 276.11 0.0 0.96 11 253.00 Success Species þ Cohort þ Charge þ Distance þ Visibility þ Season 282.93 6.8 0.03 11 259.82 Success Group size þ Activity þ Fish/Game þ Noise þ Distance þ Visibility þ Season 285.28 9.2 0.01 16 250.94 a Akaike s Information Criterion adjusted for small sample sizes. b Change in AIC c from top model. c Model weight. d Number of estimable parameters. e Reduced model after removal of group size and noise which were uninformative. 4 The Journal of Wildlife Management

Table 4. Logistic regression coefficients, standard errors (SE), odds ratios, and 95% confidence intervals from the highest ranked model (Akaike s Information Criterion adjusted for small sample sizes (AIC c ) weight ¼ 0.96) of firearm success as a function of bear, firearm, human, and spatio-temporal influences in Alaska, USA during 1883 2009. Coefficient Estimate SE Odds ratio Lower 95% CI Upper 95% CI Intercept 0.984 1.017 Black bear 3.652 1.180 38.56 5.92 855.38 Female 1.916 0.718 6.79 1.93 34.80 Charge 1.921 0.783 0.15 0.02 0.58 Charge unknown 3.283 0.980 0.04 0.00 0.22 Intermediate activity 2.485 0.912 12.01 2.40 97.04 Sedentary activity 3.180 0.983 24.04 4.11 216.71 Unknown activity 2.141 1.140 8.51 1.01 97.67 Game 1.427 0.482 4.17 1.67 11.21 Fish 2.109 0.690 8.24 2.40 38.86 Unknown 0.662 0.366 1.94 0.95 4.02 Higgins 1999, 2003; Herrero 2002). Female bears with dependent young comprised the second-most common cohort involved in firearm incidents. Surprise encounter was the reason most often given for conflict with this cohort. Brown bear family groups suddenly confronted by people were commonly aggressive-defensive, as they protected their cubs from a perceived threat. Too few incidents involving black and polar bear family groups (n ¼ 4 and 1, respectively) occurred to support meaningful conclusions, but Herrero (2002) reported that black bears rarely attack people in response to sudden encounters. Single bears comprised the most common cohort involved in firearms incidents, a reflection of the relative frequency of that cohort in North American bear populations (Jonkel and Cowan 1971, Schwartz et al. 2003) and the fact that single bears are the most hunted cohort. Although firearms were successful (84% handgun; 76% long gun) in deterring aggressive bears in the records we studied, we do not claim that these rates represent the outcome for all bear firearm incidents throughout Alaska. When we initiated this study in the late 1990s, we had access to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game s defense of life or property (DLP) records. However, privacy laws restricted our access to records from 2001 to present. This incomplete record potentially affects 3 findings: the number and type of human injuries, the number and type of bear injuries, and firearm success rates. First, because bear-inflicted injuries are closely covered by the media, we likely did not miss many records where people were injured. Therefore, even if more incidents had been made available through the Alaska DLP database, we anticipate that these would have contributed few, if any, additional human injuries. Second, including more DLP records would have increased the number of bears killed by firearms. Finally, additional records would have likely improved firearm success rates from those reported here, but to what extent is unknown. Our modeling results indicated that models with firearm variables had very limited support (Tables 1 and 3). The type of firearm, number of shots taken, whether or not the people fired warning shots, and how many firearms were present in the group had minimal influence on the outcome. Success was best predicted by a model that included species and cohort of bear, whether or not the bear charged, human activity level, and if fish or game meat were available. These findings coupled with odds ratios from univariate analyses (Appendix 1) affirm some of the conventional advice for avoiding bear encounters: hike in a group, avoid areas of poor visibility, be more cautious when in brown bear country, and make noise to avoid startling females with dependent young (Herrero 2002, Smith 2004). Although bear spray, pyrotechnics, noise makers, and other deterrents may alter a bear s behavior, only a firearm provides a lethal force option. However, interviews revealed that some people were hesitant to use lethal force for fear of shooting the person being attacked, or because they did not want to have to skin the bear and pack out its hide, skull, and claws as required by law. Additionally, some people admitted that they were reluctant to shoot a protected species. In some cases, this reluctance proved detrimental when split second decisions were required for the person to defend themselves from an aggressive, attacking bear. The decision regarding which deterrent to use is a personal one, but the consequences of attempting to use lethal force should be carefully weighed. Firearm type received very little support, suggesting that efficacy of the firearm was unrelated to whether people used a handgun or long gun. Considering the high intensity, rapidly unfolding, close-quartered, and chaotic nature of bear attacks, these results are not surprising. Hence, we cannot recommend one class of weapon over the other. We did not have data regarding the level of expertise associated with those who carried firearms. Regardless, a person s skill level plays an influential role in determining the outcome in bear firearm incidents. MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS Firearms should not be a substitute for avoiding unwanted encounters in bear habitat. Although the shooter may be able to kill an aggressive bear, injuries to the shooter and others also sometimes occur. The need for split-second deployment and deadly accuracy make using firearms difficult, even for experts. Consequently, we advise people to carefully consider their ability to be accurate under duress before carrying a firearm for protection from bears. No one should enter bear country without a deterrent and these results show that firearms are not a clear choice. We encourage all persons, Smith et al. Bears and Firearms 5

with or without a firearm, to consider carrying a non-lethal deterrent such as bear spray because its success rate under a variety of situations has been greater (i.e., 90% successful for all 3 North American species of bear; Smith et al. 2008) than those we observed for firearms. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The United States Geological Survey Alaska Science Center and Brigham Young University provided support for this project. We gratefully acknowledge a number of reviewers who have provided guidance regarding this manuscript, the Associate Editor and Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Wildlife Management in particular. D. Hardy (ADFG retired) provided useful comments that have helped make this more valuable. Additionally, we appreciate those who helped us collect bear incident data. LITERATURE CITED Akaike, H. 1973. Information theory as an extension of the maximum likelihood principle. Pages 267 281 in B. Petran and F. Csaki, editors. International Symposium on Information Theory. Second edition. Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, Hungary. Amstrup, S. C. 2003. Polar bear. Pages 587 610 in G. A. Feldhamer, B. C. Thompson, and J. A. Chapman, editors. Wild Mammals of North America: Biology, Management, and Conservation. Second edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Arnold, T. W. 2009. Uninformative parameters and model selection using Akaike s information criterion. Journal of Wildlife Management 74:1175 1178. Bromley, M., L. H. Graf, P. L. Clarkson, and J. A. Nagy. 1992. Safety in bear country: a reference manual. Department of Renewable Resources, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. Burnham, K. P., and D. A. Anderson. 2002. Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. Second edition. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA. Craighead, J. J., and F. C. Craighead. 1971. Grizzly bear man relationships in Yellowstone National Park. BioScience 21:845 857. Doherty, K. E., D. E. Naugle, B. L. Walker, and J. M. Graham. 2008. Greater sage-grouse winter habitat selection and energy development. Journal of Wildlife Management 72:187 195. Dytham, C. 2003. Choosing and using statistics: a biologist s guide. Blackwell Publishing, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Gookin, J., and T. Reed. 2009. NOLS bear essentials: hiking and camping in bear country. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, USA. Harper, P. 2007. Black bear management of survey-inventory activities. Alaska Department of Division of Wildlife Conservation, Juneau, USA. Herrero, S. 1970. Human injury inflicted by grizzly bears. Science 170:593 598. Herrero, S. 2002. Bear attacks: their causes and avoidance. Lyons & Burford Publishers, New York, New York, USA. Herrero, S., and A. Higgins. 1999. Human injuries inflicted by bears in British Columbia: 1960 1997. Ursus 11:209 218. Herrero, S., and A. Higgins. 2003. Human injuries inflicted by bears in Alberta: 1960 1998. Ursus 14:44 54. Hosmer, D., and S. Lemeshow. 2000. Applied Logistic Regression. Second Edition. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York. Jonkel, C. J., and I. McT. Cowan. 1971. The black bear in the spruce-fir forest. Wildlife Monographs 27. Loe, J., and E. Roskaft. 2004. Large carnivores and human safety: a review. Ambio 33:283 288. Meehan, W. R., and J. F. Thilenius. 1983. Safety in bear country: protective measures and bullet performance at short range. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PNW-152, Portland, Oregon, USA. Miller, S. D. 1993. Brown bears in Alaska: a statewide management overview. Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Wildlife Technical Bulletin Number 11, Juneau, USA. Miller, S. D., and M. A. Chihuly. 1987. Characteristics of nonsport brown bear deaths in Alaska. International Conference on Bear Research and Management 7:51 58. Moment, G. B. 1968. Bears: the need for a new sanity in wildlife conservation. BioScience 18:1105 1108. Moment, G. B. 1969. Bears and conservation: realities and recommendations. BioScience 19:1019 1020. Schwartz, C. C., S. D. Miller, and M. A. Haroldson. 2003. Grizzly bear. Pages 556 586 in G. A. Feldhamer B. C. Thompson, and J. A. Chapman, editors. Wild mammals of North America: biology, management, and conservation. Second edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Shelton, J. G. 1994. Bear encounter survival guide. Shelton Publishing, Hagensborg, British Columbia, Canada. Smith, D. 2004. Backcountry bear basics: the definitive guide to avoiding unpleasant encounters. The Mountaineers, Seattle, Washington, USA. Smith, T. S., S. Herrero, T. D. DeBruyn, and J. M. Wilder. 2008. Efficacy of bear deterrent spray in Alaska. Journal of Wildlife Management 72:640 645. United States Fish Wildlife Service [FWS]. 2002. Bear spray vs. bullets: which offers better protection? Fact Sheet No. 8. <http://www.fws.gov/ mountain-prairie/species/mammals/grizzly/bear%20spray.pdf>. Accessed 10 Dec 2010. Associate Editor: Scott McCorquodale. 6 The Journal of Wildlife Management

Appendix 1. Univariate analysis showing log-likelihood, odds, and associated 95% confidence intervals for firearm success in relation to bear, firearm, human, and spatio-temporal influences in Alaska, USA 1883 2009. Category Variable Log-likelihood Df Odds Lower 95% CI Upper 95% CI Bear Species (polar) 152.05 4 2.00 0.39 14.43 Black 13.50 1.07 334.95 Brown 0.65 0.09 3.40 Unknown 2.75 0.26 30.43 Cohort (single) 157.26 5 1.19 0.79 1.80 Female w/young 1.12 0.59 2.15 Female 7.00 2.25 30.86 Male 1.81 0.92 3.63 Pair 1.68 0.31 12.56 Charge (none) 156.77 3 7.33 2.54 30.98 Yes 0.23 0.05 0.69 Unknown 0.07 0.01 0.28 Firearm Type (handgun) 163.40 4 2.44 1.16 5.60 Long gun 0.64 0.27 1.44 Both 0.27 0.03 1.91 Unknown 0.76 0.27 2.05 No. shots 161.12 2 1.20 1.04 1.38 Warning shot (none) 160.33 4 1.63 1.22 2.19 Success 2.05 0.60 9.37 Unsuccessful 1.60 0.75 3.66 Unknown 0.23 0.05 0.82 Firearm ratio (1/group) 160.56 4 6.33 2.16 26.96 1/Person 0.22 0.05 0.67 Unknown 0.31 0.07 1.03 Human Group Size 160.99 2 1.68 1.14 2.53 Activity (active) 157.41 4 0.30 0.07 0.98 Intermediate 5.71 1.68 26.13 Sedentary 11.33 2.86 58.44 Unknown 2.86 0.55 17.52 Fish/game (none) 157.50 4 1.18 0.79 1.76 Game 2.74 1.21 6.68 Fish 5.94 1.89 26.32 Unknown 1.25 0.70 2.24 Noise (none) 155.83 3 1.25 0.87 1.81 Yes 4.16 1.99 9.40 Unknown 1.01 0.55 1.83 Spatio-temporal Distance (<10 m) 151.90 5 1.20 0.81 1.78 11 25 m 2.45 1.23 5.08 26 50 m 1.91 0.93 4.10 >51 m 13.38 2.58 246.08 Unknown 0.44 0.17 1.07 Visibility (poor) 163.69 3 1.59 1.12 2.29 Good 0.78 0.37 1.68 Unknown 1.30 0.73 2.33 Season (spring) 154.04 5 1.17 0.54 2.57 Summer 3.48 1.35 9.06 Fall 1.25 0.51 3.01 Winter 0.86 0.31 2.33 Unknown 0.38 0.08 1.49 Smith et al. Bears and Firearms 7

18 October 2011 Tom S. Smith Brigham Young University 451 WIDB Provo, UT 84602 Phone: 801-422-2151; FAX 801-224-2151; E-mail tom_smith@byu.edu RH: Smith et al. Bears and Firearms Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska Supplemental Information TOM S. SMITH 1, Wildlife Sciences Program, Faculty of Plant and Wildlife Sciences, Brigham Young University, 451 WIDB, Provo, UT 84602, USA STEPHEN HERRERO, Environmental Science Program, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada CALI STRONG LAYTON, Wildlife Sciences Program, Plant and Wildlife Sciences Program, Brigham Young University, 448 WIDB, Provo, UT 84602, USA RANDY T. LARSEN, Wildlife Sciences Program, Faculty of Plant and Wildlife Sciences and Monte L. Bean Life Sciences Museum, Brigham Young University, 407 WIDB, Provo, UT 84602, USA KATHRYN R. JOHNSON 2, Alaska Science Center, USGS, 1011 E. Tudor Road, Anchorage, AK 99502, USA Here we provide supplemental results associated with our bear-firearms research that may be of use and interest to biologists. The methods we used to collect and analyze these data are presented in body of the manuscript. 1 Corresponding author is tom_smith@byu.edu 2 Current address P.O. Box 4374, Palmer, AK 99645

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH RESULTS We analyzed bear-firearm incidents that occurred in Alaska from 1883 to 2009. A total of 444 people were involved in 269 incidents. Gender was known for 378 (86%) people: 336 men (89%) and 42 women (11%). Single individuals encountering bears comprised 59% of all incidents (n = 157), groups of 2 people were involved in 28% of all incidents (n = 74), groups of 3 people were involved in 7% of the incidents (n = 20), groups of 4 people were involved in 3% of the incidents (n = 8), and groups of 5 or more people were involved in 3% of incidents (n = 7). The primary activity of most people involved in incidents (n = 269) was hunting (56%), whereas the rest were engaged in extractive industry (10%), hiking (7%), sport fishing (6%), scientific research (6%), camping (4%), trapping (2%) and various other activities (9%). However, at the time of interaction with bears, 36% of people were walking, 25% actively hunting, 12% engaged in campsite activity, 6% preparing game meat, 3% sport fishing, and 18% in an assortment of other activities. Seventy-six percent of people involved in bear conflicts (n = 198) were not making noise to alert bears (e.g., shouting out, hand-clapping, etc.) prior to the encounter, 24% of which were hunters (n = 62). Of people involved in bear encounters the most prevalent reason for conflict was that of surprising bears (43%), followed by curiosity (23%), provoked (9%), hunted (7%), predatory (6%), carcass defense (3%), and other (8%). At least 357 bears, including dependent offspring, were involved in 269 incidents, including 300 brown bears (84%), 36 black bears (10%), 6 polar bears (2%) and 15 of unknown species (4%). Bear cohorts involved included single bears of unknown sex in 38% of encounters (n = 102), females with dependent young in 26% of encounters (n = 69), adult females in 10% of encounters (n = 28), adult males in 23% of encounters (n = 61), and a pair of adult bears in 3% of encounters (n = 7). 2

Encounters with bears occurred throughout the year, peaking in September (n = 59, 25%), with the least activity in February (n = 1, < 1%). For firearm incidents for which time of day was known (34%; 90 of 266), 10 (11%) occurred between 0000 hr and 0600 hr, 30 (33%) occurred between 0601 hr and 1200 hr, 23 (26%) occurred between 1201 hr and 1800 hr, 21 (23%) occurred between 1801 hr and 2400 hr, and 6 (7%) occurred between 2401 hr and 0100 hr. A large proportion of encounters occurred when the bear first appeared at < 10 m from people (n = 105, 44%), with 91% occurring at distances of < 50 m. In 52% of bear-firearms incidents (n = 137) bears made physical contact with people. In incidents where firearm type was specified, 81% (n = 187) of people carried long guns (e.g., shotguns and rifles), 18% carried handguns, and the remainder had both (1%, n = 2). Approximately 1/3 of people involved (n = 150, 35%) were hunters. Most hunters (n = 114, 76%) carried long guns, 13 (9%) carried handguns, 2 (1%) carried both, and 20 (13%) were unspecified. Of 246 incidents where data were available, 15% (n = 37) of people fired no shots, 39% (n = 94) fired a single shot, and 46% (n = 115) fired multiple times. Bear-inflicted injuries occurred in 151 of 269 (56%) incidents. Of the 444 people involved in firearms incidents, 122 (28%) were injured: 26 (21%) were injured but the extent was not reported, 26 (21%) suffered slight injuries, 34 (28%) suffered moderate injury, 21 (17%) suffered severe injury and 15 (12%) were fatally injured. The majority of injuries involved brown bears (n = 216, 81%), ranging from slight to fatalities. Black bears injured 30 people (11%), polar bears injured 6 people (2%), and 15 injuries (6%) were attributed to bears of unknown species. Of the 15 bear-inflicted fatalities, brown bears were responsible for 13 (87%), black bears 1 (7%), and polar bears 1 (7%; G 1 = 30.4, P < 0.001). Hunters were the largest category of people injured by bears (40%), suffering 13 of 15 bear-inflicted fatalities. The other 3

2 fatalities involved a photographer and a hiker. Solitary individuals suffered the highest number of injuries (n = 267, 59%), including the highest fatality rate (n = 8, 51%). Those traveling in pairs fared better, suffering half the injuries of those alone, yet approximately the same number of fatalities (n = 7). Groups of 3 or more cumulatively suffered only 13% of the injuries in incidents we examined. We analyzed data to see how wounding a bear affected its behavior. Of the 103 incidents where bears were wounded, a positive outcome (e.g., the bear halted its aggressive behavior) occurred in 59 incidents (57%), and negative outcomes occurred in the remaining 44 incidents (43%; the bear s aggressiveness was undeterred). We also wanted to see if bears shot before contacting the victim behaved differently than those shot after having made contact. In 77 incidents where bears were shot prior to making contact, 50 had a positive outcome (65%), that is, the bear s behavior was altered (i.e., they broke off the attack). Conversely, in the 26 incidents where the bear was shot after having made contact, only 9 (35%) yielded a positive result, the bear breaking off the attack. Bears involved in these incidents had a variety of fates, including: uninjured (n = 71, 27%), wounded (n = 11, 8%), and killed (n = 169, 64%). In 61% of instances (161 of 264 incidents), bears were killed with a firearm by the people being attacked. Although handgun users suffered a variety of injuries, all fatalities involved people using long guns (n = 14). Success rates by firearm type were not different, with 84% of handgun users (31 of 37) and 76% of long gun users (134 of 176) successfully defending themselves from aggressive bears (z-statistic = 1.0664, P = 0.2862). Handgun users killed proportionately fewer bears than long gun users while defending themselves during encounters (58.0% vs. 70.1%; z- statistic = -5.5246, P < 0.0001). However, people using handguns wounded bears at the same 4

rate as did long gun users (9.7% vs. 9.6%; z-statistic = 0.0173, P = 0.986) and missed hitting their target at similar rates (3.2% vs. 5.7%; z-statistic = -0.5684, P = 0.5698). Of 90 incidents wherein the caliber of firearm was disclosed, we found the success-to-failure ratios varied from 1.0 for the.300 caliber rifle (7 successes to 7 failures) to 8.0 for the 12 gauge shotgun (16 successes to 2 failures). Success-to-failure ratios for the 30-06 rifle (1.3),.357 handgun (5.0), and.44 handgun (2.0) were also calculated. 22BIn 46% (37 of 79) of close-range encounters (< 10 m) with brown bears, firearms deterred the bear. In 93% (13 of 14) of close-range encounters with black bears, firearms deterred the bear. In 50% (2 of 4) of close-range encounters with polar bears, firearms deterred the bear. In 58 incidents where people fired a warning shot, 34% of the time (20 of 58) the bear broke off the attack. People using long guns successfully against aggressive bears did so at a mean distance of 6.4 m (n = 70), whereas those with handguns were at a mean distance of 4.2 m (n = 10, t = 0.9445, P= 0.17). People unsuccessfully defending themselves with long guns (n = 8) were not significantly closer than those who were successful (xˉ = 5.1 m, t = 0.4889, P = 0.31). Some of the reasons for having, but not using, firearms included choosing not to use them, being surprised, or not having time to use them. When we compared outcomes for people who used their firearm in an aggressive bear encounter (n = 229) to those who had firearms but did not use them (n = 40), we found no difference in the outcome (G = 0.691, d.f. = 2, P = 0.708), whether the outcome was no injury, injury, or fatality. We did, however, find a difference in the outcome for bears with regard to firearm use: 172 bears died when people used their firearms whereas no bears died when firearms were not used. 5